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Renovation: the beginning

Having my own place is still a fresh, new thing for me. I’ve lived in many places after I moved out of my parents, but always rented. Come last summer, I found myself signing a lot of documents to state that I, for realsies, owned my own castle! Granted, it is an apartment, but it sure felt like a castle to me! Finally, an opportunity to renovate! I could paint at whim! I could pick out the materials and colors and whatever I felt like!

Well, reality soon presented itself in the form of financial constraints. Then I was obsessing over different solutions, planning and budgeting… In the end, I think I found a pretty good balance. My friends and I did a lot ourselves, but I hired a professional where that was safer (and required: mainly plumbing and electricity).

I ended up with a big reno, including:

– Taking down walls

– Changing the layout of the kitchen (thus moving the pipes and plumbing)

– Rewiring most of the electricity and adding a lot of sockets

– Changing the floor (and lists)

– Painting the window frames, walls and ceilings

About the only places I haven’t changed are the bathroom and the closet. And the closet is on the to do -list…🙂

I love reading about other renovations in the Internet. Numerous blogs have been a great resource of knowledge for both planning and execution and an endless well of inspiration. I hope my (soon to begin🙂 renovation story might help someone as well!

2 thoughts on “Renovation: the beginning”

Thanks Laura! I was lucky in that I had great friends to help me out and enough time reserved for the reno. I was also prepared to learn by doing, since this was my first big renovation. That helped me put things into perspective and appreciate stuff as a learning opportunity, even when something seemed to go wrong.🙂